Night at Motel 9
by T-R-Us
Summary: Post-hunt, Dean and Cas kick back to take advantage of one of the motel's simpler pleasures.


**Title: **Night at Motel 9  
**Rating:** K+  
**Pairing: **Gen  
**Spoilers:** None  
**Warnings:** None  
**  
Summary: **Post-hunt, Dean and Cas kick back to take advantage of one of the motel's simpler pleasures.

**Author's Note: **Idek, guys. Idek. Unbeta'd, because it's short and I don't want to trouble her. All mistakes are my own and would still be my own even if I had gotten this beta read.

* * *

Dean loves chords. Loves to feel the burn in his fingers of hitting each grouping of notes. And _oh yeah, _do his fingers hurt. His left wrist is pretty much throbbing along to the beat, but it's a good kind of hurt. The back-from-a-successful-hunt-and-no-one's-dead kind of hurt.

He's got real sores, too, though. There's a new hole in this pair of jeans, clear through the knee cap, which itself is covered in a rusty-colored crust of dried blood. His jacket's off, strewn somewhere in the vicinity of the door from where he's sitting at the edge of the bed, legs open, relaxed. There's a couple new tears in the coat, too. Or at least, he _thinks _they're new. Hard to tell these days.

His foot taps along to the beat, but it's hardly necessary given how hard Castiel is rocking out on the drum kit beside him. He's glad he put Cas on the drums. Can't imagine what it would be like to get his ass kicked by an angelic tax attorney on the electric guitar. At least he can write this off with the fact that the drums are friggin' _easy_.

A glance at the angel's concentrated gaze makes him miss a couple notes as the song picks up speed, but it's worth it when bumping their knees together causes Cas to break his own bajillion-note streak, the angel cutting off his furious eye contact with the TV to look back at Dean.

Meanwhile, the missed notes add up and before Dean can even register the game audience's boos, he's failed out. After another moment, Cas fails as well.

"Why did we stop?" The innocently curious look his face assumes now is adorably befuddled and Dean lowers his guitar to cuff him gently on the shoulder.

"Gettin' pretty good at this, aren't you?"

Castiel's eyes narrow for a moment, brows creased in thought, but his expression relaxes far sooner than it would have a year ago and the angel goes so far as to offer Dean what might actually be a smile.

And that's the point, isn't it? Because he's getting pretty good at a lot more than just Guitar Hero.

"Thank you, Dean."

The hunter nods knowingly and jabs his index finger into the green uppermost button to resubmit them into the game. "The Impala's," as they're known on the game screen, have skyrocketed to five-star standings in every song they've played. And while Dean would love to attribute it to his skills as a medium-level lead guitarist, Cas and his unfailing rhythm deserve at least a little credit.

But only a little, Dean's the one who taught him how to play, after all.

Outside, rain pelts the hotel room window, one of the curtains left open to let in the light of the one, lonely street lamp struggling to illuminate the flooding parking lot through the downpour. The band's namesake is absent from its spot outside and Dean hopes Sam has enough sense to park her a little further from the threateningly overflowing storm drain when he gets back.

"Dean?"

He turns back to Cas, who's watching expectantly, drumsticks limp in his hands. "Same song, or a new one?"

The angel's eyes narrow in thought, and he brings one of the sticks down against the set, scrolling through the available songs himself. "I enjoyed this one."

Dean's face breaks into a grin that spreads the bloody crack in his lips so wide that it hurts, and strums in on 'medium.'

Castiel's drum sticks are inches from chiming in on 'difficult' when they stop suddenly in mid-air, gaze shifting to the door.

Sam is even more battered than either of them, but for the sake of the cashiers at the Thai restaurant he ran out to grab dinner from, he's cleaned up a little. The gash on his forehead's carefully bandaged and his two dislocated fingers popped neatly back into place and splinted. He's got a bit of a limp to his left leg and he's drenched, but his eyes light up a little at the sight of the wii, flashing in front of the cheap motel TV set.

"Really?"

"Twenty bucks an hour, so get your ass over here."

They don't start the song until Sam's settled in with the second guitar on bass – and no one makes any comment about his broken fingers handicapping him down to easy mode.

Lucifer's still out there and so's every other mo-fo that goes bump in the night, but for now, they're just three guys jamming out to Kansas. And at only twenty bucks an hour, they'll take it.


End file.
